I Want You For You
by Damonficgirl
Summary: Audrey/Nathan drabble set during season 2 after the episode where Nathan regains his ability to feel - then gives it up to spare a girl with an even worse trouble. Five minute add on to the episode.


**I Want You for You**

D/C – Not my characters! Tune into Season 3 in September!

**Setting – after the season 2 episode where Nathan loses then regains his ability to feel physical contact. At the end of the episode they are sitting at table, it looks like they're about to have dinner and Audrey leaves suddenly. **

"Audrey, wait-" Nathan called out before his partner who had abruptly gotten up from the table, could leave the restaurant.

"Yes?" Audrey asked, her eyes wide and questioning as she spun on her heel and wondered with a pang of guilt if he'd noticed how quickly she'd gotten up, how desperate she'd been to get away from him, before she said something she shouldn't, or he did something that might change things between them.

"About today, I realised something," Nathan began, uncertain if she should continue, silently wishing Audrey would sit down opposite him again, yet unable to ask. Always he felt this ironic vulnerability with her, he trusted her with his life, but trusting her with his feelings was harder, even though there was no one he had ever opened up to the way he did with Audrey Parker.

"Yeah?" Audrey asked, her heart pounding in her chest. She inched slightly closer to the table.

"When I realised that I could feel again, feel anything, anyone…. Well Duke, thought I should," he blushed and lowered his eyes, "enjoy myself."

"Yeah," Audrey smirked, her stomach twisting, was this going to be his confession. "You know you really don't have to tell me-" she began.

"I- I didn't. That's not that I mean. Audrey, you've probably wondered, I think at first even I wondered, if you being the only person I could feel, changed things between us. Today I realised that it didn't. When I could feel anyone, touch anyone, I didn't feel any differently. I didn't want…." The words died in his throat. Nathan's stormy blue eyes met Audrey's sky blue eyes for a moment, wishing he could silently communicate the words he couldn't say, searching for hope, for confirmation that this wasn't all in his head and that he wasn't being a total jerk cracking onto his female co-worker. He'd never been one of those cops – the ones that assumed that every woman he worked with would, naturally, want to fall into bed with him. He was so used to thinking of himself as different, as troubled, that he tended to assume that no one would be interested in him, or at least not if they understood. Relationships were just too awkward when women knew the truth.

"It's okay Nathan, I understand," Audrey offered awkwardly.

"No you don't. I just want you to know, what you mean to me, it's because of who you are, not what you are. It's not because you're immune to the troubles."

Audrey smiled, she wasn't ready for that conversation yet, but she was glad he'd said it, she was glad that everything she'd hoped was true, "Thanks."

Nathan nodded, his trade-mark twisted half-smile playing across his face, his body relaxing slightly. He wanted to say more, one day, one day soon, but for now at least, it was enough, it was enough that she understood. One day he would be ready to say more and she would be ready to hear it. For now, there was work, their work, and their friendship, she was the truest friend he had and anything that might risk that, it wasn't worth it, not until he was certain she not only felt the same way, but wanted it, wanted him. He wasn't so selfish and tied up in his own emotions, his own troubles, to miss noticing that Audrey was dealing with her own issues. He wouldn't ask her for more than she was ready to give, but he had slowly been coming towards the realisation that he was in love with her and knowing that was real, knowing it wasn't some desperate need to really be with someone, was wonderfully freeing.

A/N – My first _**Haven **_drabble, but I thought this episode needed five minutes more!


End file.
